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Makowiec (Poppy Seed Roll)

Makowiec (Poppy Seed Roll)

Makowiec (pronounced "Ma-KOH-viets") isn't, strictly speaking, a holiday bread. But it is a classic Polish dessert or tea bread that is commonly served around the holidays. And it is delicious.

Almost all of the moisture in this dough comes from the sour cream, butter, and eggs. There is no primary fermentation: it is one rise and in the oven. This suprised me enough that I verified the recipe in 3 different Polish cookbooks. All of them used this same technique.

To prepare the filling: Put poppy seeds in a small saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand until cool. Strain the poppy seeds through a fine strainer.

Combine the poppy seeds, walnuts, and almonds in a blender or food processor and grind.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the poppy seed mixture and sugar to the skiller and simmer over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the egg, honey, orange peel, lemon peel, and raisins. Whip the egg whites until stiff and then folk into the poppy seed mixture. Let cool.

To make the dough: Prime the yeast in the warm water. Cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Mix in the salt, and sugar, then mix in the yeast, eggs, egg yolks, sour cream, vanilla extract, and lemon rind. Once the ingredients are mixed and can form a ball of dough, turn out onto a work surface and knead for 8-10 minutes (or use a stand mixer to knead for 5-8 minutes) until the dough is smooth and satiny.

To make the rolls: Divide the dough in two. Roll out each piece into a thin, roughly square shape.

Spread half of the filling onto each piece and then roll the dough up, sealing the seam and ends as tightly as you can.

Place each roll onto a baking sheet.

Cover with a damp towel or place the baking sheets into plastic garbage bags and set aside to rise for approximately 90 minutes.

Bake in an oven heated to 350 for 30-35 minutes, until the exterior is golden brown. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes then glaze.

Your Makowiec looks very similar to Povitica. The primary difference appears to be that the povitica dough is rolled extremely thin before being spread with filling and is then baked in loaf pans after being rolled up. My first encounter with povitica was here in Kansas City. There's a local bakery that specializes in povitica: http://www.povitica.com/

I enjoy both their poppyseed and walnut versions, which are the old traditional types. In looking at their website today, it appears that they have expanded their product line.

In addition to thinner dough, the other tendency with politica over Beigli is it tends to separate the eggs, and use he whites in the filing. Thy also tend to use a wetter dough and bake lng rolls of it in loaf pans.

Maybe you are already familiar with them, but Penzeys Spices sells poppy seeds for $6.80 a pound both online and in their stores. So far they are the most reasonable I have found. I'm not sure where you live, but they have 36 stores nationwide. Their website is www.penzeysspices.com. I have been using their spices for several years (since I was a kid, really), and I loved them so much I decided to work their a few days a week! Their vanilla extract is superb, as well. A friend of mine is convinced that their cocoa powder is the best available (especially for the price!) since it does not clump when sifted like Hersheys and others tend to do.

I forgot to mention -- they will also grind them for you if you don't have a grinder or don't want to put up with the mess it can be. I can't remember the exact price - you have to call them to find it out since it is not on their website, but I believe it is around $9.00 a pound.

Am really curious about this recipe, but a bit hesitant to use such a large amount of poppy seeds. Has the filling got a gritty texture and what flavour do the poppy seeds contribute in that quantity? The loaf/log looks very tempting. Floydm, what did your chief taster think of it (what is his name)?

Most recipes for this type of bread call for the poppy seeds to be simmered in milk. The first time I tried my late mil's recipe (which did not include even basic instructions, simply a list of ingredients...) I simmered the seeds. O, what a gritty mess. Flinging them through the food processer didn't help, and the blender was marginally successful. Before the next batch of poppy seed rolls, I purchased a poppy seed grinder and ground the seeds before simmering them in milk. It is also possible to purchased canned/prepared poppy seeds.

Yeah, Meg is on the money. Your options are to grind the seeds as best you can or buy a paste.

Having cooked them a bit to soften them up and then ground them in a blender, I found the filling seedy but not gritty. It wasn't ground fine enough that I'd call it a paste, but the seeds didn't seem to bother anyone, including my picky four year old.

Floyd, what a beautiful poppy seed roll :-) I am Polish and must say it's one of my family's favourite cake. It's a traditional bake at Christmas so I'll be making mine soon. I would advise to first simmer the poppy seeds in milk, then put them on a sieve, let it stand for half an hour so it's not so moist and. I use a meat grinder with a special fine disc for that job. Enjoy your Makowiec!! :-))

My husband and I have been searching for this and SUCCESS! We are both of Polish ancestry and my husband and my mother both remember this tasty treat. However, we cannot seem to find poppy seeds in a can in area on the East coast. If anyone can recommend a source, we would appreciate the contact. Thanks and Happy New Year from DE, USA

Dear Floyd, Where are you getting your reference to Maxamilliam Kolbe from? He is a deceased Catholic martyr who attained sainthood status. I didn't know he was also a baker. Or are you refering to another person by the exact same name? Please and thanks, Joey the Doeyo

This reminds me so much of my childhood! My grandmother used to make this a lot. I am surprised how many of her recipes turned out to be of Polish/Jewish origin. She was of Serbian/German decent so I guess it would make sense. I grew up having things like this Poppy Seed Roll, Knedle Soup, Potato pancakes. All of which all this time I thought were Serbian/Croatian or German, but turned out to be more like Jewish origin. Thanks for this blast from the past memory maker :)

Oh, and I was never a fan of this as a child but in my later teen years before she passed away, I learned to love it. What I would do for a slice now.

This is an interesting twist to an old family favorite. Our family made this or even individual little rolls with the poppyseed filling in the inside made like a turnover. I always let the dough rise at least once and then rise again a bit before baking. I have found that I need to put fork pricks into the roll before it rises, or else the loaf splits. I have tried to post a picture of the bread I made this year for the holidays. My Paternal Grandparents were of German decent but the family had lived in what is now a part of Ukraine, for 400 years so I think that some of her recipes had a bit of a local flavor.

Just made this today and while it tastes great, the middle was still a little doughy even after cooking it for 40 minutes at 350. Anyone else have this experience? The outside was perfect and I think would have been dry if I had continued to cook the loaves any longer. Any suggestions to avoid a doughy middle? I used 2 cups whole wheat flour finely ground, and 3 cups of white flour, could that have done it? I used a poppy seed filling that had fruits and nuts in it, just lightened it up with the egg whites. I didn't use the glaze because it's sweet enough for me without.

I've been compiling recipes for this pastry (makowiec aka beigli, aka povitica) and there are a zillion different recipes. I've noticed the Polish versions use icing. The Hungarian versions tend to add sour cream (though yours does too). BTW, you can grind the poppy seeds several tablespoons at a time with a spice grinder. A non-traditional flavoring I found works well with this is orange water.

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